At our house I’m cooking for two, and sometimes it’s impossible to make a dish that doesn’t leave tons of leftovers. I freeze them, I box them for lunch, and on occasion I hack them by turning last night’s dinner into today’s brand new meal!
I think everyone, regardless whether they’re feeding just themselves, or four people, or fourteen, ends up with leftover spaghetti sauce. We manage to get the noodles right, but somewhere during the process the sauce triples itself. After one such occasion it dawned on me that all the sauce still in the pot might work well as a chili base. I’m happy to say that it did, and even better it works with pretty much all types of spaghetti sauce.
Here’s what you’ll need:
Leftover spaghetti sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow bell pepper, diced
1 jalapeno, diced
¼ cup Merlot
1 can chili beans in sauce
1 can black beans, strained
1 tbsp brown sugar, packed
1 tbsp chili powder
½ tbsp cumin
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp ground mustard
1/8 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp ground pepper
1 can tomato sauce (optional)
1 cup water
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 bay leaf
Let’s hear it for spices! They are the key to this hack.
Here’s how you hack:
In a large pot soften bell pepper and jalapeno in olive oil over medium heat.
Add the wine, chili beans with the sauce from the can and the strained black beans.
Mix the spices in a small bowl (brown sugar, chili powder, cumin, red pepper flakes, ground mustard, ground pepper, salt).
Pour them in the pot and stir well.
Throw in the leftover spaghetti sauce!
If your sauce is thick like mine, or you are concerned you don’t have enough, add the tomato sauce. To give you a frame of reference, here is my spaghetti sauce:
As I mentioned earlier any type of spaghetti sauce works. I used a ground turkey based sauce, but could have gone with chicken spaghetti or vegetarian and the chili would still be delicious.
Finally, add tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaf and water.
Stir it up nicely and cover!
Reduce the heat to low-medium and cook for one hour stirring occasionally.
Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream and corn chips!
Get the printable here -> Turn Leftover Spaghetti Sauce into Chili
I had a need to convert a large left over portion of Pasta Sauce in my freezer (my wife said toss it). So I googled “convert pasta sauce to chili” and found your recipe for chili. Since my past sauce had yellow and red pepper in it, I skipped those but added the beans and spices as you laid out. It turned out awesome, the flavor was great. I did use a Pinot Noir for the Red Wine, seemed to do the trick. I will be sure to make a big batch of Pasta Sauce next time to try and duplicate!
Awesome! So glad it worked out for you… and I always overdo it now with pasta sauce on purpose now too 😉